Kelly's killer receives life

Sentence ends 20-month ordeal for slain boy's mom

STOCKTON - A man known on Stockton streets as Beast will spend the rest of his natural life in state prison for murdering a 13-year-old boy killed in a gang shootout, according to a judge's sentence ordered Tuesday.

By Scott Smith

recordnet.com

By Scott Smith

Posted Oct. 7, 2009 at 12:01 AM

By Scott Smith

Posted Oct. 7, 2009 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

STOCKTON - A man known on Stockton streets as Beast will spend the rest of his natural life in state prison for murdering a 13-year-old boy killed in a gang shootout, according to a judge's sentence ordered Tuesday.

Jurors believed so, too. At the trial's end in August, they found Prum had committed first-degree murder and a list of gang and gun charges.

In Tuesday's sentencing, San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge George Abdallah sent Prum to prison for life without the possibility of parole. The jury's verdict dictated the term.

Prosecutor Janet Smith considered Prum the ringleader of four defendants who participated in Aaron's death. Prum was also the last of them to be sentenced.

Garcia stood in court to say she was finally ready to reclaim what she lost upon her son's murder. Garcia had worked in a bank, but she said outside court she has been able to do little but focus on the trial.

She had been at the park with her son, Aaron, and two daughters barbecuing with friends that Friday evening.

She recalled seeing Prum - a red bandanna tied across his face - walk toward her family and friends at Louis Park, where he threatened Tellez. About a dozen in her group quickly got up and left in their cars.

According to the trial testimony, that's when Prum fired the bullet from a MAC-10 submachine gun, which first struck Garcia's car. It then hit her arm and her son, Aaron, who died in the front seat of her car as she sped to the hospital.

Backing Prum were three others, each sentenced to long prison terms in September for their parts. They were:

» Rattany Uy, 18, sentenced to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

» Deandre Cole, 18, had pleaded guilty in a deal that gave him 30 years and eight months in prison.

» Michael Garduno, 20, received a prison term of 26 years after pleading guilty.

Prum and a few of his relatives who gathered in court made no statements.

Behar said Prum wrote out a two-page motion asking for a new trial. Behar said he was not prepared to file it. Judge Abdallah said he would accept the motion to be delivered to Prum's appellate attorney.

After the hearing, Prum was returned to the San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp where he awaits a transfer to prison.